Released from the Law

1Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is master over a person as long as he lives? 2For the married woman has been bound by law to her [†]husband while he is living, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law [†]concerning the husband. 3So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.

4So, my brothers, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were constrained, so that we serve in newness of [†]the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

7What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! Rather, I would not have come to know sin except [†]through the Law. For I would not have known about [†]coveting if the Law had not said, “YOU SHALL NOT [†]COVET.” 8But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, worked out in me [†]coveting of every kind. For apart [†]from the Law sin is dead. 9Now I was once alive apart [†]from the Law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died; 10and this commandment, which was [†]to lead to life, was found [†]to lead to death for me. 11For sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12So, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

The Conflict of Two Natures

13Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by working out my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would [†]become utterly sinful.

14For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, having been sold [†]into bondage under sin. 15For what I am working out, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. 16But if I do the very thing I do not want, I agree with the Law, that it is good. 17So now, no longer am I the one working it out, but sin which dwells in me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the working out of the good is not. 19For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. 20But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one working it out, but sin which dwells in me.

21I find then the [†]principle that in me evil is present—in me who wants to do good. 22For I joyfully concur with the law of God [†]in the inner man, 23but I see a different law in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a captive [†]to the law of sin which is in my members. 24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from [†]the body of this death? 25[†]Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.